MOSCOW. July 1 (Interfax-AVN) - The state corporation Rosatom has airlifted the first certified planeload of spent nuclear fuel from Romania, the state nuclear corporation Rosatom has reported.
After landing in Yekaterinburg the spent nuclear fuel was moved to the Mayak nuclear waste disposal facility.
The spent nuclear fuel removal was in compliance with an intergovernmental agreement of February 19 2009 and was under the International Atomic Energy Agency's supervision, Rosatom said. The nuclear fuel had been used in a research reactor at the Horia Hulubei National Research Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering
This continues cooperation between Russia and the United States in the return of fresh and spent nuclear fuel from reactors, built under Russian and American projects.
Rosatom had been preparing the airlifting project for three years, inspecting the fuel and developing a method of loading it. TUK-19 packaging containers and specially designed transport cargo containers were used for the first time in the practice of transporting nuclear fuel assemblies.
Rosatom removed unused fresh highly-enriched uranium fuel from a research reactor in Pitesti, Romania, to Dmitrovgrad in Ulyanovsk region on June 27 2009.